‘Someplace else’? Helen Frankenthaler’s printerly paintings

• Published in: Journal of contemporary painting Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 111 - 133
• Main Author: Chalaby Cora
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol Intellect Ltd 01.04.2023
• Subjects: 20th century; Abstract art; Art history; Art techniques; Artistic expression; Artists studios; Frankenthaler, Helen; Modern art; Offset printing; Prints and printmaking; Woodcuts; Workshops
• ISSN: 2052-6695; 2052-6709
• DOI: 10.1386/jcp_00052_1

This article examines the role of printmaking in Helen Frankenthaler’s practice. While Frankenthaler is primarily known for her monumental abstract paintings and invention of her ‘soak-stain’ technique, printmaking formed a vital part of her oeuvre over five-decades. Countering ingrained material hierarchies, I consider how the printerly manifests within Frankenthaler’s studio practice. In a January 1970 lecture at Yale University, Frankenthaler asserted that that there was ‘a lot more room for development’ within painting and the ‘best of it is going someplace’. Taking up Frankenthaler’s proposition, I argue that her painting developed in the ‘someplace else’ of printmaking. As such, this article moves beyond the narrow confines of a medium specific discourse. Printmaking offers an alternate vantage point – spatially and materially ‘someplace else’ – through which to reconceptualize where and how Frankenthaler extended painting as an aesthetic category, subject and site of artistic production. Focusing on Frankenthaler’s work of the 1960s and 1970s, this article offers an exploration of the parallel reinvention of painting, printmaking and, concomitantly, the studio and workshop during this period.